#StoutDay reviews Harviestoun Ola Dubh

I originally planned this blog post for Thursday night, but due to being ill decided to postpone it until this weekend. 

Scotland has had a dearth of breweries until recently and one of the new breed is the wonderful Harviestoun. I have not had a duff beer from them yet from the super session beer bitter and twisted to their cask conditioned lager Schiehallion, they tackle every style with aplomb. Whilst holidaying in Scotland last year I found a bottle of their porter old engine oil in the Scone (pronounced scoon) Palace gift shop. I'm a big fan of porter and it looked lonely on the shelf; so took it home and, of course, they aced that too. When I found out that they had aged the beer in a selection of Highland Park whisky barrels it was a no-brainer that I had to try them.

I picked up the bottles from Beer Ritz at various times over the last year, four in all and decided to try them all at the same time to see how the barrels affected the base beer. The whiskys of course taste different with age; so how would this impact on the beer?

 All 8% ABV the beers pour a similar dark brown-black with thin brown head. This is where the similarities end. The tasting notes for each are below:

12

Interesting aroma of pineapple, and Christmas cake...rasins, fruit cake and marzipan. Hint of smoke on the palate and a musty rusk dry chocolate finish. Gentle carbonation and an oily texture.
16
Red wine and coconut with treacle and black pepper flavours.Less noticeably alcoholic than the other expressions. Zingy carbonation.
18
Grassy, grainy rye nose with a hint of a maraschino cherry. Overwhelming whisky flavours and quite thin bodied.
40
Alcohol and nutmeg nose with plenty of booze and chocolate raisins in the taste. Gentle carbonation.

Its interesting to see such a wide palate of flavours across the four beers, though they all undoubtedly have spent time in whisky barrels with subtle vanilla and boozy whisky notes across all of them. The 12 y/o whisky is known for having peat smoke and that definitely ended up in the beer.  I certainly hope to get hold of a bottle of the 30 y/o too and I reckon I'd enjoy the whisky.

Another view of three of the Harviestoun beers can be watched below. Its the ineffable Zak Avery (The Beer Boy) of Beer Ritz.

#StoutDay Black as...

...insert a very black thing here.

No brewery these days seems complete without an imperial stout in their line-up and I've managed to build up quite a collection; so its time to make use of #StoutDay to get some of them drunk.

Well that was the plan until I ended up having to take the day off sick, so just the one review in the end, the brand new offering from Hardknott Brewery (delivered to me yesterday morning) Vitesse Noir (11%). Billed as a Triple imperial vanilla mocha stout it was something I was keen to try. It looks lovely in the Hardknott snifter glass, which I have a feeling I'll be using fairly frequently in the future.

So on to the beer. It pours into the glass a luxurious velvety black with just a hint of a tan head. The aroma is immediately delicious and rich coffee, like walking into a coffee shop just as they've turned the percolator on. Beneath this coffee there are notes of juicy red cranberries and blackcurrant, inviting you to take a taste.I duly do so and find a lovely rich and aromatic coffee flavour waiting for me, followed in short shrift by plain chocolate and vanilla sweetness. As this departs the palate a bitter coffee and roast barley flavour appears briefly to be replaced by a lasting rich malt sweetness and a touch of orange peel. The alcohol remains well hidden throughout and its smooth, thick body slips down easily, resulting in the glass soon needing a refill. I heartily recommend you try this now!

I had planned to also review Mikkeller/Brewdog/NogneO Black Tokyo Horizon and a couple of others, but they will have to wait for another day!